


Breaking Bones

by pouralittle



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst, Canon Continuation, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, POV Multiple, POV Second Person, Parabatai Alec Lightwood & Jace Wayland, Parabatai Clary Fray & Isabelle Lightwood, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, The Accord Is Abolished, Years Later, Yin Fen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:40:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24124510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pouralittle/pseuds/pouralittle
Summary: Several years after the season 3 finale, a new threat emerges. No one is really safe."Except, for certain now, something is terribly wrong -- because your parabatai rune is pulsing, bleeding and hotter than the heavenly fire that ever blazed within you. Some days, you think it never left. But you’re alive, and for the most part, don’t magnificently implode upon coming into contact with demons and downworlders."
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Isabelle Lightwood, Alec Lightwood & Isabelle Lightwood & Jace Wayland, Alec Lightwood & Jace Wayland, Clary Fray & Isabelle Lightwood, Clary Fray/Jace Wayland, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Simon Lewis/Isabelle Lightwood
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Breaking Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something new with a 2nd person perspective. This may or may not be a multi-chap fic because time is scarce, but if I can, I'll update new chapters whenever possible.
> 
> The POVs will mainly revolve around the Lightwoods (including Jace).
> 
> Also, it's all conjecture from here on out since the series has ended -- but there will be some nods to The Mortal Instruments book series. And tags are prone to change with the progression of the story.

Isabelle’s P.O.V

***

It took you years to disremember his face. It takes you just weeks to reclaim it. Every detail ever known, ever touched. They’re finely etched on the underside of your eyelids; even when you’re not seeing, you’re still seeing.

Simon takes you to Hunter’s Moon that afternoon; he holds your hand, tight -- because, you think, maybe he fears you’ll go away again, you’ll hitch a ride to the furtherest vampire den and disappear there -- the same way mundanes do, the same way vulnerables do.

It moves very quickly, after that. Time. The next thing you know, Simon is ordering you steak and a garden salad and pipetting ketchup-looking blood onto his highly famed chicken cacciatore dish. It is so very Simon. So warm and fuzzy.

“Izzy.” He says. Furrowing his brows, but grinning; lips somehow always upturned to you.

“Yes?”

Simon grips onto his Bloody Mary (on the table) and slides it over to your restless fingers; the only thing he hasn’t bloodied quite yet. “I want you to know I’m not angry. Or upset. Or anything, really.”

But you feel a pang reverberate from your rib cage down to your legs and up again, lingering at the back of your neck. It’s a constant fire spreading from your chest’s left side, and a part of you regrets choosing to mark the parabatai rune there of all places. Because you can never seem to breathe when either one of you is in trouble. Clary.

“Simon.” It’s the first time today you’ve called him by his name, or spoken to him at all. And he knows it. Simon’s back reflexively snaps upright, immediately erect, wholly listening with his head cocked and leaning forward. He’s the most attentive person you know, besides Alec who watches you like a hawk. Especially now. Especially with the spiralling addiction, sleepless nights and bottomless missions. Bruised wrists and bloodied knuckles. A stele that never leaves your side, that never leaves his.

Your chest burns. “I’m sorry.” You apologise. “But I don’t have time for this.”

Simon’s expression falls slightly. He brushes his fingers through his hair slowly then, and when his mousy brown curls flip back, you’re suddenly reminded of his little Harry-Potter-scar carved in the middle of his forehead. And you quickly notice too, the pallor of his skin, the creeping whiteness around the edges of his used-to-be baby-face -- which now is adult, very male, man. You begin to realise how he must have spent a lot of time indoors as of late, probably searching for you, likely helping Alec pick out pertinent addresses that appeal to your sense of addiction. That very prospect hurts in a different way than normal. It haunts.

_Magnificently imploding_ , Simon had once said in reference to his lovers’ penchants. He wasn’t wrong.

“Can you just eat something?” He studies you, close, for a moment. Impotence on his shoulders. Hope slipping. “We can have anything you want. I’ll order it for you.”

Except, for certain now, something is terribly wrong -- because your parabatai rune is pulsing, bleeding and hotter than the heavenly fire that ever blazed within you. Some days, you think it never left. But you’re alive, and for the most part, don’t magnificently implode upon coming into contact with demons and downworlders. 

It’s fact though, that you would sooner die hunting demons than live without the mission. Without purpose.

“Clary is in trouble.” You tell him quietly, clutching your parabatai rune. “I have to.”

Simon doesn’t reply at first, but nods his head eventually -- watching, like the sun is disappearing below the horizon -- as you pull out your stele and lift up the ends of your tank top to activate the nourishment rune. He raises a brow at the press of skin against your ribs and the stark protrusion of your hips. 

Ever since yin fen, you’ve never been the same. It’s not a secret anymore; so you don’t bother trying to hide it.

“Where is she?” Simon asks.

You show him the seelie ring next, which you break off your bracelet. It’s a memory, you’re sure, you both recall in exquisite detail, before things had gotten completely out of control. Before Max died. Before the Clave abolished the Accords. Before Simon left. 

His ring you later gave to Clary.

Simon forces an approving smile as you twist your ring on your finger and wait.

_Clary?_

Two words come back to you.

_Cortlandt Alley._

  
  


…

Simon follows from a distance, several feet behind, as you slink in the shadows of the deep alleyway. You can smell the demon ichor deeply now, already stinging the surface of your skin, flaring in your lungs with every breath. But you can’t separate it from Clary’s pain for certain -- to determine if it’s from her current state, or if it’s from a strong demon presence. Either way it isn’t good.

“Izzy, where are they?”

You turn a corner sharply, catching your back flush against the bricks when the knife of a talon flashes across your vision.

There’s a yelp. And you finally see Clary’s bright orange hair tangled around her pale face at the deadend of the alley. She is pinned down by a wraith you have never seen in your whole, earnest shadowhunting experience. Jace lies crumpled beside her unconscious, and Alec is nowhere to be seen. This is when you begin to feel the panic, the fear surging and bubbling inside of you -- of having this on top of everything else. Your breathing immediately changes.

In seconds, the whip is unfurled and then knotted around the demon’s head, and you tug with all the strength you have. 

It comes to you, rearing its head, enticed, hungry.

Simon appears then, in your periphery, his vampire claws piercing themselves into the shell of the wraith, which convulses violently in its attempts to free itself; he holds the creature down. You don’t wait for another opportunity and begin liberally slashing with your whip: up, down, across -- in all the ways you know how -- to cut a thing into pieces. And then you pounce on it, a seraph blade raised to the pitch-black night, gleaming as it swings in a fierce arc down the center of the wraith’s head. There’s a familiar howl of demon fury before it conflagrates into hell’s crimson ashes. And you tumble to the ground, without the energy to catch yourself -- which you did have when you were still graceful, still powerful and of integrity.

Simon half-breaks your fall though, with his stony arm thrusted beneath your shoulders... but it doesn’t prevent the crack you hear when you land awkwardly on your wrist. It hurts but it’s a dull ache, a nothingness -- less real in comparison to the firestorm wreaking havoc at your ribcage. Clary.

As soon as you contain your breaths, you pick yourself up, and hurry towards her, dropping onto your knees, none too kindly, in front of her limp body.

“Clary.” You say, taking out your stele. Tracing her iratze over and over, even though you know she’ll need the infirmary and proper medical attention. Her eyes flutter shut, tears slipping from the exits of her eyeline, and her white blouse begins to seep with blood, profuse and unstopping. You see the three diagonal lines of a deep claw mark.

Simon stares at Clary, shocked. “Go get Jace.” You command him, your voice higher than usual, more tight. You were never the authoritarian, but you were also never the scared little girl. “We’re going to the institute.”

And it doesn’t matter to you that Simon is a vampire, that the Accords no longer exist. That times are different.

Because it almost feels like how it had been, when they were still a team. Passionate, jetting warriors. You remember the meteor shower that you observed alongside Alec and Jace after saving the world (saving Clary, Simon and all that truly matters) -- the rocks of space had been bright, fiery and glorious.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I heart-break you? I'm sorry if I did :)


End file.
